Like the Lincoln-Douglas political debates of 1858 or any of the myriad tours of musicians, politicians or just plain vacationers of more recent vintage, the Great Clergy Sex Debates of the 1990s have rolled into another American town.
If this is July, it must be the Episcopalians in Phoenix.
As with the Presbyterian Church (USA) national convention last month in Baltimore, the national Episcopal Church convention in Phoenix this week became consumed with rhetorical passion over controversial issues of ordaining homosexuals and recognizing sexual relationships outside marriage.
Episcopal Bishop Arthur Walmsley of Connecticut confessed that testimony during a 2 1/2-hour open debate last Sunday night left him torn. He said he wanted reconciliation between the ”partial truths” of his 37-year heterosexual marriage and of a fellow clergyman`s relationship ”with the same person since they were both undergraduates at an all-male college 30 years ago.”
The rift was condensed and defined in a classical clash of liberal-conservative attitudes between Bishop Paul Moore Jr., retired bishop of New York, and Bishop William Frey, dean of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry at Ambridge, Pa.
In a quintessential liberal plea, Moore urged that the ”most Anglican”
stance delegates could take on the sexuality issues was ”to be ambiguous, to be loose, to be messy, but to be honest enough to have the integrity to say we simply can`t decide the will of God.”
At the polar extreme, Frey proposed a canon law requiring clergy to
”abstain from all genital sexual relations outside marriage.”
When all was debated and done, and the proposed canon was defeated in a close vote, the bishops and clerical and lay delegates at the 70th General Convention of the Episcopal Church ended up closer to Moore`s position than to Frey`s.
They also ended up very close to where the voting clerical and lay delegates at the 203rd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) found themselves last month: They sought to finesse and postpone a decision on ordaining homosexuals and sanctioning same-sex relationships.
And, just as there was in Baltimore, it appears there will be a ”fall-guy,” a scapegoat committee set up to do extensive research on the church`s sexual policies and to make resultant recommendations, only to have their work rejected at the convention, albeit in conciliatory tones.
With the Presbyterians, it was the three-year study of a Special Committee on Human Sexuality appointed by the moderator of the denomination`s 1987 convention.
With the Episcopalians, it is the three-year study of the Standing Commission on Human Affairs appointed at the 1988 convention.
Despite striking similarities, even to the extent that both were reviewing sexuality policies established at their denominations` conventions in the same year, 1979, the committees` proposals were not carbon copies.
The Presbyterian panel advocated ordination of homosexuals and promoted what it termed ”justice love,” which would recognize sexuality as God`s gift to everyone, including unmarried people, gays and lesbians, and responsible adolescents.
The Episcopalian committee recommended that the church consider blessing same-sex relationships, and that decisions on ordaining homosexuals be left up to local bishops.
A 1979 Episcopal convention resolution deemed ordaining homosexuals ”not appropriate,” but did not establish explicit mandate or penalty.
Many viewed that as a loophole, and bishops in New Jersey and Washington, D.C., maneuvered through it, ordaining homosexuals in the past year. They thereby pre-empted and stole some thunder from the Phoenix convention`s debate.
With two days left in Phoenix, the Episcopalians are coming ever nearer to mirroring what the Presbyterians did in Baltimore-namely, approving a compromise resolution that upholds church teaching affirming marriage as the appropriate context for sex, that acknowledges conflict between what the church is teaching and what its members are doing, and that the church isn`t yet ready to tackle that disparity.
And like the Presbyterians, the Episcopalians` 1991 position on sexuality will essentially reprise where they stood in 1979.
Leaders of both denominations concede that they aren`t as comfortable standing there as they used to be and that the debate over how and how much to change is causing a lot of pain in their ranks.
The Presbyterians put the hot potato in the hands of a long-standing ministry committee, to report back to next year`s convention.
It appears the Episcopalians will refer the sexuality debate for discussion in local churches. What emerges from congregations apparently will be distilled in each of the church`s nine provinces and reported to the next convention.
That won`t be until 1994 in Indianapolis, since the Episcopalians only meet every three years.
But the Great Clergy Sex Debates of the 1990s are expected back on tour next year and in 1993, as committees of the United Methodist Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America are completing reports on human sexuality issues.
